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It’s been more than three decades since Tetris landed on the NES, and now, a 13-year-old who managed to master the game at a young age has become the first person to “beat” the beloved classic.
It’s safe to assume most people who grew up playing video games in the ’80s and ’90s went through a Tetris phase at some point. It was originally released for the PC, but it became one of the most popular titles on the planet after hitting a number of consoles (and getting a GameBoy release), which helped thrust it—and its catchy music—into the spotlight.
One of the major reasons Tetris caught on is its relatively straightforward concept. You don’t need to be a genius to understand how to place the falling blocks in the right place in order to make lines disappear, but with that said, there’s a pretty steep learning curve as the speed increases in the later levels.
For years, it was believed the NES version of Tetris ended at level 29 due to the controller’s inability to adequately keep up with the speed of the cascading pieces.
However, a little over a decade ago, experts eventually realized it was possible to deploy some borderline violent tapping techniques in order to overcome that hurdle, and players have been pushing the limit ever since.
According to TechSpot, Willis “Blue Scuti” Gibson—a 13-year-old Tetris pro—recently became the first person to achieve what the community considers a “true kill screen” after making it all the way to Level 157 before causing the game to crash—a feat that no one else before him has managed to achieve.
As the outlet notes, there are other records that could theoretically broken, including triggering the kill screen at Level 155 (the earliest possible chance) or making it all the way to Level 255 (the point at which the game would reset).
Achieving either of those feats would require a nearly perfect game, but you never know what’s possible.